All figures (GBP taken as PAL price because that's where I live) converted at current exchange rates to USD approximately. Forecast is conservative and assumes no further price cuts or SKUs than 40GB in the U.S., although I expect more will happen and further prove my point. SKU pricing and availibility is reliable to the best of my knowledge.

In less than a year since the launch of the PS3, Sony has released five SKUs in various regions (20GB, 40GB, 60GB Some, 60GB Full and 80GB) all with different pricing in various regions and erratic discontinuations and price cuts. Since each regional authority can set its own models and pricing, the SKU variety is still diverging between them and even more SKUs and price cuts are rumoured, such as 160GB in Japan, and 80GB cut in the US and 40GB introduction in the US. Backwards compatibility with the world's most successful home console, the PS2, is also slowly disappearing from new models. The effect of so many changes in less than a year is to confuse the consumer and make developing for the PS3 even more challenging. On nearly all of these models, Sony loses money.

Compare this to the most successful console so far this generation, the Wii, which has only one SKU at a constant price for each region and near-perfect backwards compatibility with not only GC but through downloads NES, SNES, N64, Neo-Geo, TG16, TG-CD and Mega Drive. It worked for them.

What consumers really want is one fully-featured SKU at a price reflecting the quality and availibility of current games (not future ones or new updates like Home).

If Sony really wants to appear consistent and decisive to reassure consumers and shareholders, this is not a good start.

Im pretty sure in their 10 year plan for the PS3 sony didnt invisage this.

What ever way you try to spin it bringing out this many different versions in the 1st year isnt a good thing.

Well, mabey not a great start, but the important thing its to monkey around with the product and find out which combinations of features each market segment ( hardcore gamer, rich gamer, 3rd world gamer, etc) would be satisfied with. Personally, I think that this new 40g model will be a lot more popular overseas b/c it provides the basics, while leaving out some features that the overseas people probably wouldn't use as much, such as the PSN thereby bringing the product to the consumer at a substantially cheaper price. I for one am really proud of Sony for finally doing something that looks like a good execution.

its been said that there will be a $399 PS3 in the US by March 2008. I think the 80GB is going to have a price drop when the 60GB is completely sold out. My local EB is out of 60GB PS3s and wont be receiving anymore.

 that is the stupidest comment I've seen today. You are retarded. Thats like saying Xbox Live isnt used through out the world and isnt standard. 

I don't think anyone's satisfied with the current month-by-month alterations to the lineup; developers or customers. "The important thing" with consoles is to create a stable, branded platform for game development. None of the models are at reasonable prices for their feature-sets when compared to Wii or Xbox 360. The game choice is not great either, and future games don't count because they could suddenly slip, be cancelled or be ported.

It's just a fact that the U.S has a much higher % of its population using the internet than the rest of the world, including europe, japan, asia, etc.  The implication is that if not that many people are using the internet, then they don't need ethernet cords.  Sorry. 

you do know that USA is number 21 when it comes to the world's fastest internet speeds right.

Well as of now, Europe has the worst of the bunch. No sku that would support bc. Sony should settle down with two sku's at the max with maybe limited editions from time to time..Dallas i certainly can't agree with you that this is a good stradegy coming from Sony. It brings in too much havoc into the consumer world.

"It's just a fact that the U.S has a much higher % of its population using the internet than the rest of the world, including europe, japan, asia, etc. The implication is that if not that many people are using the internet, then they don't need ethernet cords. Sorry."

This is the general population. The gamer subset would be a much higher figure.

Internet use penetration (% of population)

Sweden 75.6%
Australia 71.9%
US 69.7%
Japan 67.1%
UK 62.3%

Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/top25.htm